TITLE:
Assessment of a Precaution Index for Environmental Evaluation: An Example of Application to the Cow’s Milk Production
AUTHORS:
Francesca Ventura, Marco Vignudelli, Linda Pieri, Paola Rossi Pisa
KEYWORDS:
Environmental Pollution, Precaution Index, GIS, Multi-Criteria Analysis, Cow’s Milk, Emilia-Romagna Region
JOURNAL NAME:
Food and Nutrition Sciences,
Vol.5 No.10,
April
30,
2014
ABSTRACT:
The paper presents
a Precaution Index (P) developed to create an instrument to assess the potential
risk related to the presence of pollution sources next to milk production
farms. The methodology starts from the inventory and geo-referencing of all
pollution sources in an area, with the help of the multi-criteria decision
analysis. Results are represented in a map of P, which highlights which areas
are most at risk and need monitoring, and which pollutants may be involved.
This may help in the early identification of emerging hazards to
food safety. P was calculated for the milk production in an Italian region.
Results show that 97% of the area is in a condition of minimum precaution that
would be needed in controlling the safety of dairy products.